The public buildings which we saw, the Bank of Ireland (once the Houses of its Lords and Commons), the Four Courts, College of Surgeons, Post Office, Barracks, &c., are all handsome, chiefly of Grecian architecture, and interesting to those who fancy this style of sight-seeing.
We were rather disappointed with Sackville-Street. It wants length; and it wants (Heaven send it soon!) the animation of business and opulence, gay equipages, and crowded pavements.
The Phoenix Park is delightful, rus in urbe—some 1700 acres of greensward and trees. We met several regiments, returning from a review; (the carman told us there were two reviews weekly, and we, of course, said something brilliant about the Dublin Review being monthly); and were, consequently, in an admirable frame of mind to appreciate the monument, grim and granite, in honour of the Iron Duke. What men this Dublin has given to the world—Swift, Steele, Burke, Grattan, Moore, Wellington. The names of his great battles are graven on the obelisk, Waterloo being, of course, omitted. I say “of course,” because there is something so delightfully Irish in this small oversight, that it seems quite natural and appropriate; and I should as little dream of being surprised or vexed by it, as if in an Irish edition of Milton I could find no “Paradise Lost.”
In the Phoenix Park are the Constabulary Barracks, and the men were at drill as we drove by. There is no exaggeration in stating, that if a regiment could be formed from the Irish constables, it would be the finest regiment in arms See them wherever you may, they are, almost without exception, handsome, erect, heroic. Picked men, and admirably trained, they are as smart, and clean, lithe, and soldier-like, as the severest sergeant could desire. They do credit to him whose name they bear, for they are still called “Peelers” after their godfather Sir Robert, who originated the force, when Secretary for Ireland. Fifty of them had left Dublin for Kilkenny that morning, to expostulate with the bould pisantry on the impropriety of smashing some reaping-machines recently introduced among them. The Irishman is not quick to appreciate agricultural improvements. It required an Act of Parliament to prevent him from attaching the plough to the tails of his horses; he was very slow to acknowledge that the plough itself was better, when made of iron than of wood; he esteemed a bunch of thorns, with a big stone a-top, as the most efficient harrow going; and he denounced the winnowing-machine, as a wicked attempt to oppose the decree of a good Providence, which sent the wind of heaven “to clane the whate and oats.”
A short time afterwards, we were surprised to see in a letter from one of these constables to The Galway Express, that their pay, after twenty years' service, is only two shillings per diem; and low as the remuneration for labour still is in this country, one cannot help but sympathise with the complainant.
These lions, from whose manes and tails we have ventured to extract a few memorial hairs, were inspected before luncheon; immediately after that refection, we set forth per rail, and via Kingston, to Killiney. We had ample time, as we went, to contemplate the surrounding objects, which were not “rendered invisible from extreme velocity,” the nine miles occupying forty-five minutes; but we saw nothing of especial interest until we had reached the station, and began to ascend the hill. Then we exulted, eye and heart. The hill itself is worthy of a visit, the massive blocks of “its cold grey stones” contrasting admirably with the rosy heaths (I never saw ericas in greenhouse or garden with such a fresh, vivid brightness, 1) and with the glowing, golden furze. Ah, how poor and formal are statues, and terraces, and vases, and “ribbon-patterns,” and geometrical designs, and “bedding out,” when compared with nature's handiwork! And though, perhaps, never since the days of “the grand old gardener” has ornate horticulture attained so great a splendour, what true lover of flowers is really satisfied with our gorgeous modern gardens? We treat them, for the most part, as a child, with a new box of paints, his pictures—all the most glaring colours are crowded together; and the eye, dazzled and bewildered, yearns for that repose and harmony which, in nature, whether in the few flowerets of some hidden nook, or in the fiery autumnal grandeur of some mighty forest, diffuse perpetual peace.
1 This applies throughout Ireland. See “Inglis's Tour,” vol.
ii., p. 42.
There is an extraordinary structure at the top of Killiney Hill, which could only have been devised by an Irish architect. It is not a tower, nor a lighthouse, nor a summer-house: nay, the builder himself confesses he knows not what it is, in the following inscription:—“Last year being hard with the poor, the walls about these hills, and This, &c. &c., erected by John Mapas, Esq., June, 1742.”
Hard by, a young Duke of Dorset was thrown and killed, while hunting. It must have been a very Irish fox that led hound and horse into such a perilous position, and the only wonder is that any of the riders came down alive. A monumental pillar perpetuates the sorrowful history, and warns enthusiastic sportsmen from galloping over the broken ground and hidden fissures of misty mountain tops.
Apropos of mountain and of mist, we saw a sight which reminded us of Anne of Geierstein, as she appeared to Arthur Philipson, “perched upon the very summit of a pyramidical rock.” For among the works executed by the benevolent behest of Mapas, there is one, hewn in stone, a four-sided staircase, leading to an apex, intended, doubtless, for a statue. But this was wanting when we first arrived; for the design, like so many others in poor old Ireland, had never been completed, and there were no